Behindlings

Автор

Nicola Barker

Год написания книги

2019

<< 1 ... 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 ... 26 >>

На страницу:

Перейти

18 из 26

Настройки чтения

Размер шрифта

Высота строк

Поля

Huh-huh

… five hours…

Huh-huh

… in…

HAH!

Arthur checked his watch. Four and three…

Huh-huh

… quarters…

HAH!

Approximately.

Huh-huh

He checked it again. Four…

Huh-huh

… hours fifty…

HAH!

Precisely. There you go. Just as he’d predicted. Five hours. Only ten…

Huh-huh

… minutes…

Huh-huh

… under. Not bad going. Simply had to regulate…

Huh-huh

Had to focus. Had to stop pushing. Just…

HAH!

… cruise…

Huh-huh

… awhile. Just cruise. Just…

Okay.

Okay

Yes.

HAH!

And…

Phew!

… better.

Candy Island? Jeeeesus! (Pulse was racing. Chest pumping.

Heart banging like… heart throbbing like… fragile-pink-shuddering-hairless-newborn-rodent… Stop! … rat… Stop!… fieldmouse… Stop –HAH! – thinking!)

Huh-huh

Candy? What the heck was that all about, anyway? Yes he knew it was a nod to Defoe (Arthur hawked, then expertly spat the dense yet compact globule over his shoulder) but the actual meaning of the reference…

Huh-huh

… as Defoe used it, originally?

Of course – and this was the worst part – Wesley himself probably didn’t have the first…

HAH!

… idea about the phrase’s basic etymology. He was so damn slap-happy, so relentlessly superficial. A cunning magpie. A stinking plagiariser. And so determinedly cheerful about it. Such a blissful bloody…

HAH!

… philistine.

Arthur bent down abruptly to tighten one of his shoelaces –so abruptly, in fact, that the weight of his rucksack almost toppled him. He quickly stiffened his legs, his thighs, stretched out his arms; palms pushed forward –grumbling furiously –rapidly re-located his centre of gravity, tapped the ground lightly with his fingertips –just to make certain –then yanked hard at the lace and firmly re-tied it.

Wasn’t the poor –Huh-huh –lace’s fault, was it!

Defoe? A preposterous seventeenth century opportunist, a loose cannon, an incorrigible hypocrite. And that –let’s face it –was putting it politely.

Candy.

Candy…

Arthur stood up. His face glistening. He grimaced. He re-adjusted his back-pack. He walked on again.